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Brains of anorexics, obese wired differently: Study

QMI Agency

Tuesday, April 3, 2012
5:07:18 EDT PM

A laboratory assistant holds one hemisphere of a healthy brain in the Morphological unit of psychopathology in the Neuropsychiatry division of the Belle Idee University Hospital in Chene-Bourg near Geneva March 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

Brains of people who suffer from anorexia and obesity respond differently to food, say neuroscientists.

Researchers at the University of Kansas found that brain responses to food change depending on eating behaviours - from overeating to food deprivation.

Lead researcher Laura Holsen and her team conducted brain scans of healthy control subjects and of people with anorexia nervosa, obesity and Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that can cause extreme obesity.

When hungry, the people with anorexia showed substantially decreased responses in the areas of their brains associated with reward and pleasure when they were shown various pictures of food. The chronic overeaters had significantly increased responses in the same brain regions when shown pictures of food.

"Our findings provide evidence of an overall continuum relating food intake behaviour and weight outcomes to food reward circuitry activity," Holsen said in a release. "Even in individuals who do not have eating disorders, there are areas of the brain that assist in evaluating the reward value of different foods, which in turn plays a role in the decisions we make about which foods to eat."

The research is being presented Tuesday at the 19th annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.